Born in Wells, Minnesota as Arthur Frederick Ward, 1894, d. New York, 1939. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1915 and attended the Army School of Military Aeronautics at the University of California, Berkeley during 1917-1918. On demobilisation he worked as a book editor for Macmillan&Co before undergoing training on the Monotype machine, after which he worked for the printers Edwin Rudge. He had met Beatrice Becker in 1919 and they married in December 1922. Warde was Printer for Princeton University (1922-1924). The couple moved to England in late 1924 for Warde had been offered work by the typographer Stanley Morison, designing for The Fleuron and the Monotype Recorder. The marriage did not last; they separated in 1926, and quickly divorced, though the break-up was an amicable one. Afterward Warde lived in France and Italy, where he became involved in Giovanni Mardersteig's Officina Bodoni. In 1926 Mardersteig printed The Calligraphic Manual of Ludovico Arrighi - complete Facsimile, with an introduction by Stanley Morison, which Warde issued in Paris while working for the Pleiad Press. He had his name changed several times, first his last name to Warde, and then his first name first to Frederique and then to Frederic. Warde returned to America permanently and he worked again for Edwin Rudge from 1927 to 1932, and also designed for private presses such as Crosby Gaige, the Watch Hill Press, Bowling Green Press, the Limited Editions Club and Heritage Press. Warde worked as production manager for the American office of the Oxford University Press from 1937 until his death in 1939. His typographic work: Based on the fifteenth century letters of Nicolas Jenson, Centaur (originally called Arrighi) was first designed by Bruce Rogers in 1914 for the Metropolitan Museum, and parts of the typeface (like the italic) were done by Warde in 1925. This was called Arrighi Italic (a smooth version of Blado) but became Centaur Italic (Monotype, 1929). Warde was inspired by the italic forms on the Italica of Ludovico Vicentino, a 16th century typeface. However, his capitals are more freely formed (not vertical, for example). Warde designed a revival of the chancery cursive letter forms of Renaissance calligrapher Ludovico degli Arrighi. This italic, titled Arrighi, was designed as a companion to Bruce Roger's roman typeface Centaur. Author of Monotype Ornaments (1928, Lanston Monotype Corp) [this book is freely available on the web thanks to Jacques André]. Many ornaments in this book have been digitized; see, e.g., Arabesque Ornaments (for the 16th century material) and Rococo Ornaments (for the 18th century ornaments).

For digital revivals, see Arrighi BQ (Berthold), which has romans by Bruce Rogers and an italic by Frederic Warde.

Warde also published the following privately in 1926 with Stanley Morison: The calligraphic models of Ludovico degli Arrighi, surnamed Vicentino - a complete facsimile and introduction by Ludovico degli Arrighi. Digital fonts based on his work include LTC Metropolitan (Lanston), Centaur (Monotype and Linotype versions) and Arrighi BQ (Berthold).